Job Design: A Comprehensive Guide to Describing and Improving Positions
Description of Positions through Job Analysis
The purpose of job analysis is to provide an objective description of a position. It describes how a position differs from another in terms of demands, activities, and skills required.
Contents of the Position
This refers to the activities that the position requires. A widely used method, functional job analysis, describes the position in terms of:
- Location: Where the worker operates in relation to data, people, and jobs.
- Methods and Techniques: The methods and techniques used by the worker.
- Equipment: The machines, tools, and equipment used by the worker.
- Materials: The materials, products, or services produced by the worker.
Requirements of the Position
These relate to education, experience, licenses, and other personal characteristics expected of the individual who will perform the contents of the position. A widely used method, the job analysis questionnaire, takes into account these human factors by analyzing the following aspects of the position:
- Sources of information critical to job performance
- Information processing and decision-making critical to job performance
- Interpersonal relations required of the position
- Reactions of individuals to working conditions
Background of the Position
This refers to factors such as physical demands and working conditions of the job, the degree of reliability and responsibility, the degree of supervision required or carried out, and the consequences of error. The context of the position is described as the environment in which work will be performed.
How to Design Jobs
Job design can cover:
The Perceived Content of the Position
This refers to the characteristics of a position that are defined by how it is perceived by its occupant. Two individuals performing the same work can have different perceptions of the content of the position. There are six characteristics of the perceived content of the position:
- Variety: The degree to which a job requires employees to perform a wide range of operations or use a variety of equipment and procedures.
- Autonomy: The degree to which employees have a say in planning work, selecting equipment, and deciding on procedures.
- Task Identity: The degree to which employees make a workpiece that is whole or complete and can clearly identify the results of their efforts.
- Feedback: The extent to which employees receive information while working that reveals how they are performing.
- Facing the Other: The extent to which a job requires employees to deal with other people to complete their work.
- Opportunities for Friendship: The degree to which the work allows employees to talk among themselves and establish informal relationships with other employees.
The Scope and Depth
This refers to the number of tasks performed by the incumbent. An individual performing eight tasks to complete their work has a broader scope of the job than one that employs four. In most cases, the greater the number of tasks performed, the longer it takes to complete the work. The depth of the position is the amount of discretion that an individual has to decide on activities and work results.
Individual Differences
Individual differences in the strength of needs have been shown to influence the perception of task variety. Employees with higher needs are less concerned with performing various tasks than employees with lower needs.
Differences in Social Environment
Differences in social working environments also affect perceptions of job content. The way one perceives a position is largely affected by what other people say about it.
Strategies to Improve Job Design
Job Rotation
This practice involves rotating non-managers from one job to another. In doing so, the individual is expected to perform more work activities because each job includes different tasks. Job rotation may increase the scope of the position and the perception of variety in the content. Increasing the variety of tasks should increase employee satisfaction, reduce mental overload, decrease the number of errors due to fatigue, improve production and efficiency, and reduce injuries on the job. However, rotation does not change the basic characteristics of the positions assigned.
Job Enlargement
This is the practice of increasing the number of tasks for which an individual is responsible. It increases the scope of the position but not the depth. Job enlargement strategies are a form of specialization or no increase in the number of tasks performed by the employee. An enlarged position requires a longer training period, but job satisfaction generally increases due to reduced boredom.
Globalization
Economic Factors
The basis of the global economy is dominated by weightless and intangible activities. The weightless economy is one in which products are based on information, such as programs, media, and services offered online. Many economies work through networks that transcend national boundaries. It is called post-industrial society, information society, and knowledge economy, among others.
Multinational Corporations
Among the many factors that drive economic globalization, the role of multinational corporations is especially important. These are companies that provide goods or services sold in more than one country. They are market-oriented and profit-driven. Global chains often refer to the increasingly globalized manufacturing process, which includes global networks of labor and production processes that produce a finished product.
The Electronic Economy
This is another factor that drives economic globalization. Banks, corporations, and investors may move funds from one place to another worldwide at the touch of a button. Yet it is very risky since a financial collapse in one area of the world can have enormous consequences for distant economies.
Political Changes
The third driving force of contemporary globalization is related to political change. This change involves various aspects:
– First, the collapse of Soviet Communism: the former Soviet bloc countries are approaching political and economic systems of Western stamp. This development marked the end of the system that existed during the Cold War, in which First World countries were removed from the Second World.– A second important factor is the growth of forms of international and regional government. The UN and the EU are prominent examples. – Finally, globalization is being driven by intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), international-type. An intergovernmental organization is an entity established by the participating governments and gives responsibility to regulate or supervise a particular area of activity is international in scope. International NGOs are not linked to governments but are independent organizations working with government agencies in policy making and dealing with international problems.